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Converge & Conquer

By Paul Korzeniowski

07/01/08

When IT and Facilities team up for 'intelligent' building
management, efficiency, savings, and user benefits soar.

When Tony Ragucci, associate director
of maintenance services, sat down with other Harvard University (MA)
officials in 2002 to revamp the institution's Blackstone office complex,
the group decided to make it a centerpiece of the university's energy conservation
initiative. The facility, which comprises three buildings with
40,000 square feet of office space, houses the university's operations
departments, including its facilities maintenance operations. Today, as a
result of the initiative, ground-source heat pumps cool Blackstone, water
from an adjacent steam plant provides heat to the edifices, and valence
units cool and heat the spaces via convection. A demand-based ventilation
system, an energy-efficient roof, occupancy and daylight sensors,
plus a "green" elevator (60 percent more efficient than a conventional
hydraulic elevator, thanks to a variable-frequency microprocessor) all
have helped to reduce summer energy use to 42 percent below standard
requirements. Because of this unique blend of energy-efficient devices
and nascent IT technology, Blackstone has been awarded a Platinum rating,
the highest energy efficiency rating possible, by the US Green Building
Council under its Leadership in Energy and
Environmental Design (LEED) rating system.

Since the completion of the Blackstone energy conservation project,
and using their experiences with that effort to guide them, Ragucci
and his team have been responsible for revamping the energy profiles
of more than 300 other buildings across the campus.

US Campuses Get on Board

The fact of the matter is, state-of-theart,
energy-efficient facilities are now
emerging on campuses across the US,
and for a variety of reasons: One practical
consideration is that such buildings
bring down energy costs, which are now
soaring. Facing rising expenditures and
a tightening of potential revenue, universities
are looking for ways to reduce
operating costs, and more efficient
buildings offer them one way to meet
that goal. Yet, helping to conserve natural
resources and improve the environment
also has become a common theme
in academic circles. Consequently, some
members of this community feel an obligation
to lead the charge with novel energy
initiatives. Computer technology has
become less expensive and more powerful,
so its inclusion in the facilities management
of these buildings can be more
easily cost-justified than in the past;
what's more, its impact can be significant.

As a result, campus structures no
longer need to be "dumb" compositions
of brick and mortar. Just as burgeoning
technological capabilities and lower techproduct
pricing made it possible for academic
institutions to offer services such
as online learning, low-priced microprocessors
and software advancements
have enabled campus facilities departments
to add intelligence to the management
of their structures. Colleges and
universities now are using networked
intelligent controls to turn lights off and
on, deliver electrical power to classrooms,
control the flow of air in and out
of buildings, provide heat and cooling to
facilities, and monitor CO2 emissions
throughout. What's more, schools now
are able to collect historical data about
their facilities' performance, and then
make system adjustments accordingly to
increase management efficiency and
reduce costs. Not surprisingly, these new
capabilities are blurring the lines between
traditional facilities management functions
and those of the IT department.

Recently, in fact, adding even more
"smarts" to building management has
become a priority for academic institutions.
"Because universities have been
operating for such a long time, many have
buildings that have never had any type of
intelligent monitoring system," notes
Eric Miller, VP of software solutions for Itron, a provider of
solid-state utility meters and data collection/
communication systems.

Energy usage will continue to rise on campuses, and
not just because of heating, cooling, and lighting:
IT department footprints are expanding, campus
computing and tech devices are becoming more powerful, and
wireless access points and controllers are energy hogs, too.

How 'Intelligent'?

While there has indeed been movement
toward making campus edifices smarter,
the term "intelligent building" remains
imprecise. The term first applied to
intelligent control of heating and air
conditioning systems. Typically, conventional
buildings house thermostats
and timers that are limited in that they
must be set to heat or cool, and offer no
room for accommodation of factors
such as weather or even the collective
body heat generated by the individuals
in a room. Intelligent buildings, however,
contain sensors that not only automatically
switch the system from heating to
cooling, but also can heat and cool different
parts of a building simultaneously.

To take advantage of such features,
sensors need to be stationed throughout a
structure, and in numerous locations.
They then collect information about a
building's climate and transmit it via a
common network to a central console that
determines what changes need to be
made. To move information from place to
place, the American Society of Heating,
Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning
Engineers developed
the BACnet standard, a networking
protocol designed specifically to meet
the communication needs of building
automation and control systems for applications
such as heating, ventilating, and
air-conditioning control; lighting; access
control; and fire detection systems. The
protocol enables automated equipment
performing various monitoring functions
to exchange information, regardless of
the particular building service it is
responsible for. As a result, the BACnet
protocol may be used by head-end
computers (machines designed to run
facilities functions such as collecting
room temperature information), direct
digital general-purpose controllers, and
application-specific or unitary controllers.
BACnet has been endorsed by
various standards organizations, including
the American National Standards
Institute and the International
Organization for Standardization. In 2003, conformance
tests for BACnet equipment were established;
now different vendors' devices
can operate from the same baseline.

Intelligent and Green

TODAY, FACILITIES MAINTENANCE AND CONTROL is moving beyond "intelligent,"
to "green," as campuses become concerned with tracking environmentally
hazardous emissions, and finding renewable energy sources, too.

Watch your CO2. Higher education institutions are now paying more attention to
their carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, which greatly contribute to the greenhouse
effect, according to experts who believe the country has perhaps 40 years to drastically reduce
greenhouse gas emissions before facing catastrophic consequences. Currently, half of the electricity
generated in the US comes from coal-fired power plants, which often spew out large
amounts of carbon dioxide. And by 2030, analysts expect that the US coal-fired capacity could
grow by as much as 120 GW, dramatically increasing the nation's CO2 emissions.

But the academy may just lead the charge to stanch the flow of those carbon dioxide emissions.
"We are starting to see academic institutions install
CO2 sensors so that they can monitor how much pollution
their buildings are generating, and try to make adjustments,"
notes Davis Gandees, sales engineer for Johnson
Controls.

Water, water, everywhere. Then there's the push to use
renewable energy sources such as water-- now a bona
fide movement on a number of campuses. Duke Raleigh
Hospital, a member of the Duke University Health System
(NC), consumes from 10,000 to 12,000 gallons of water
each month. In 2004, the hospital, which has 186 beds
and approximately 1,000 employees, was looking to more
efficiently prepare its hot water (used for steam autoclave
sterilization, cooking, dishwashing, and domestic hot water heat). The healthcare provider purchased
a Miura LX-Series gas-fired 100BHP steam boiler, and has since
seen improvements through the installation: The boiler is "intelligent," with an easy-to-operate
interface, says Shannon Clifton, the hospital's engineering supervisor. What's more, she adds, it
fits into smaller spaces than do traditional boilers.

Water also is becoming a popular source of energy for campuses. Harvard University (MA)
included a chilled water plant in its Northwest Science Building, which occupies 210,000 square
feet above ground and 260,000 subterranean square feet. The chillers are precision machines
designed to remove heat from a liquid by means of a refrigerant. The resulting chilled water, distributed
through pipes, is then used to cool and dehumidify air throughout the building. The new science
structure, which was opened in January 2008, supports work areas for 320 individuals and also laboratory
facilities for the neuroscience, bioengineering, astro- and particle physics, and biophysics
departments. The chilled water plant now offers several advantages compared to alternatives: higher
energy efficiency; increased reliability; space efficiency; improved noise control; and simplified
maintenance. The new chillers operate so efficiently, say Harvard officials, the university will receive a
rebate check of $250,000 from its energy provider NSTAR. Clearly, it pays for academic institutions
to consider not just intelligent facilities control, but intelligently green measures, as well.

Real-Life Challenges
and Solutions

Support for BACnet played an important
role in the intelligent building sensor
selection completed at Cornell University (NY). William (Lanny) Joyce heads up
engineering, planning, and energy management
at the university, where his staff oversees 140 buildings and 14 million
square feet of real estate occupied by
20,000 students, 2,700 faculty members,
and an 11,500-person staff. Notes Joyce:
"One of our employees was a member of
the BACnet committee, so we understood
the potential benefits that it offered."

Web-based control. At the turn of the
millennium, Cornell was looking for an
intelligent building solution for its
150,000-square-foot nanoscience building,
which has been open since 1986 and
is utilized on a 24/7 basis. The university
selected WebCTRL from Automated
Logic for the
project because its web-based interface
simplifies the programming tasks
required to capture different types of performance
metrics such as temperature
differences inside and outside a room. By
customizing the system, the university
was able to examine temperature fluctuations
in its rooms and then set new thresholds
to minimize the stress placed on its
HVAC equipment. Then by storing that
information in a database, the university
was also able to track its annual energy
usage in the building and found that the
installation of the WebCTRL system
resulted in an annual reduction of
$350,000 in its energy costs. The gains
were so great that Cornell expanded use
of the Automated Logic solution to its
science hall.

Harvard is using Siemens' web-based
Apogee system to
monitor the heat in its Blackstone complex.
"We can set the temperature lower
at night when the rooms are not occupied,
and raise it when the students start
to arrive," notes Ragucci. A kiosk in the
foyer of each building lets everyone see
how well the energy systems are performing;
the kiosks also raise awareness
about energy usage and the benefits
of building environmentally friendly
intelligent buildings.

Russell Boudreau, HVAC/utilities
specialist at 2,100-student Mount
Holyoke College (MA), understands
how much smarter the management of
buildings is becoming. He has been
using various "smart" systems for more
than three decades, and marvels at the
recent technical advances in building
control systems. Like many academic
institutions, Mount Holyoke found itself
with a variety of proprietary control
systems that were incompatible, and so
could not exchange information. In
2000, Mount Holyoke officials asked
local consultants to help them identify a
BACnet-compatible system. Working
with regional reseller Yankee Technology, the college
installed Automated Logic's WebCTRL
system in four buildings on campus,
including a renovated art building &
museum. Because WebCTRL is a webbased
product, Mount Holyoke facilities
personnel are now able to monitor the
four buildings from an internet browser, rather than use special-purpose software
running on laptop computers.

"It wasn't that long ago that technicians
worked with cryptic, specialized interfaces,"
Boudreau remarks. But times have
certainly changed: Intelligent building
controls are now the centerpiece of construction
on Mount Holyoke's new uni-
fied science complex, which will provide
116,000 square feet of space, including a
new multistory 40,000-square-foot environmentally
sound building.

Capping rising energy costs. When it
comes to intelligent buildings, heating
systems get a lot of attention. Trying to
cap or cut electricity costs, especially, has
become an area of interest for campus
administrators. Davis Gandees, sales
engineer for Johnson Controls, knows this only
too well. "Recently, universities' energy
costs encountered a 'perfect storm,'" he
explains. "Energy usage has been rising,
fossil fuel prices have been going up, in
some cases as much as 30 percent, and
state budget deficits have meant less funding
for state educational institutions."

Energy usage will continue to rise, say
the pundits. IT department footprints continue
to expand, campus computing and
tech devices become more powerful, and
the push toward increased mobility means
extending the reach of networks with
devices such as wireless access points and
controllers-- all energy hogs. That's why
better management of electric power is a
prime concern for Robert Bell, director of
plant operations at Tallahassee Community
College (FL). He oversees 85 staffers
involved with maintenance, outsourcing,
and environmental tasks at the college,
which has about 13,000 students, 40
buildings, and 1.2 million square feet of
space. Like other institutions, the college
is constantly trying to reduce its energy
consumption and for several
years has been using Johnson
Controls' Metasys building
management system to meet
that goal. The product features
a web browser interface
and support for standards
such as XML, SOAP, SNMP,
and DHCP, so it can easily
be networked with other
devices. Bell's team now
can use the system even to
monitor lights in classrooms.
With the installation
of more energy-efficient
lighting, these measures
have enabled the college to
achieve energy reductions of close to 20
percent annually.

Safety issues. Higher ed institutions
are pushing these types of efficiencies
beyond traditional school buildings and
into new areas, as well. Mount Holyoke,
for one, is using Automated Logic's
WebCTRL system to control the lighting
in its parking lots-- and not just for
energy reasons. "We want to make sure
that such areas are well-lit so students
can safely get to their cars at night,"
explains Boudreau.

In fact, many schools have been
expanding and enhancing their physical
security infrastructure to prevent (and,
unfortunately, to be prepared to respond
to) campus tragedies such as the shootings
at Virginia Tech and Northern
Illinois University. Increasingly, video
cameras as well as expanded illumination
are being positioned in areas such
as parking lots, campus entryways,
recreation spots, and relaxation sites.
Many times, these cameras are connected
to the campus network and the
images are collected in an institution's
data center. More overlap of Facilities
and IT is underway as colleges and universities
seek to protect students as well
as campus and personal property. Alarm
and alert systems are in demand, as are
technologies like biometrics, which can
greatly improve building access control.

While a great deal of progress has been
made with intelligent building management
products in the past few years, such
products still lag behind IT systems in a
number of areas. First, building automation
protocols are not as open-- and therefore
the products are not as easy to mix
and match-- as, say, web-based products.
Protocols such as BACnet do represent a
significant improvement over traditional
proprietary approaches for collecting
building performance information, but
they are not a panacea. Additionally,
BACnet requires that technicians possess
specialized skill sets in order to deploy
compliant solutions, so finding individuals
familiar with these protocols may be
challenging.

Another area where IT has been
ahead of intelligent buildings systems
deployment is in support for wireless
connections. While WiFi connections
are commonly used to connect roaming
students to their classwork on laptop or
handheld devices (and the internet in
general), intelligent building systems
that support wireless connections are
rare. Still, structures such as Harvard's
Blackstone complex represent what universities
can achieve right now. Though
few academic buildings currently possess
this level of intelligence, so much
more is possible if Facilities and IT
work together.